Oyo to acquire Amsterdam firm @Leisure for €369 million

Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO of OYO, said the firm sees vacation homes as a unique opportunity with 115,000 units of homes now getting added.

Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO of OYO, said the firm sees vacation homes as a unique opportunity with 115,000 units of homes now getting added.

Softbank-backed OYO Hotels & Homes is set to acquire Amsterdam-based @Leisure Group, a vacation rental company in Europe, which manages holiday homes, holiday parks, and holiday apartments, for €369 million.Media and technology firm Axel Springer, which held a majority interest in @Leisure, said in a release that it will receive a total of approximately €180 million (including the repayment of a shareholder loan of around €60 million). The total volume of the transaction has an EBITDA multiple of more than 15 for the year 2018, it said. The transaction is expected to close in June 2019.

OYO said @Leisure Group is among the very few companies in the world with an OYO-like full-stack approach to vacation rentals management, having built deep data-driven capabilities in revenue management, homeowner engagement, and property management services.

Launched in 2017, OYO Home has over 15,000 villas and apartment units globally. The acquisition, the firm said, will combine OYO’s capabilities of asset management and technology with the presence, local know-how and category-specific expertise of the @Leisure Group in the sphere of vacation rentals.@Leisure Group, through its Belvilla, DanCenter, and Danland brands, offers more than 30,000 fully-managed holiday homes across 13 countries in Europe and through its Traum-Ferienwohnungen brand offers a subscription-based home management service with over 85,000 homes across 50 countries. This represents a total inventory of over 3 lakh rooms.

With the @Leisure Group joining the chain, OYO will be having footprints in more than 800 cities across 24 countries including the UK, the US, India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, the UK, the UAE, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines and Japan.

“Led by Tobias Wann, @Leisure Group has witnessed a steady growth curve, both through organic and inorganic initiatives driven by a strong leadership team. @Leisure Group generates healthy margins with sustained EBITDA growth over the last few years,” OYO pointed out.

With over 18,000 buildings and 636,000 units under management and more than 40,000-holiday homes, OYO is backed by leading investors, including the SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Hero Enterprise, and China Lodging Group.

Ritesh Agarwal, founder and group CEO of OYO, said the firm sees vacation homes as a unique opportunity with 115,000 units of homes now getting added.

“@Leisure Group has proven capabilities in helping develop Europe into a vacation rentals hotspot and we are keen to leverage their competencies towards ensuring beautiful vacation rental and urban homes experience for millions of tourists from every part of the world,” Agarwal said.